My Movie Review: Avatar
By Wade Durham
James Cameron is back in action, with something new, something daring, something worth around $250 million, something.....beautiful. Avatar is a pretty simple sci-fi story about humans and there attempt to take over another species civilzation, in this case its for money purposes. Cameron takes his time setting up his story making sure you get whats going on, then from that point he follows the sam outline as Titanic(5/5). Which is love/romance first half, disaster second half. Which i'm not complaining the mans a genius really. But I know what you all really want to hear me talk about... the effects. Visually Avatar is well.....a masterpiece. The 3D is used in innovative ways thats enough to really 'wow' audiences.But really its not just the 3-D the majority of the time spent watching this fable I found myself wondering how the hell Cameron did all this, even with the huge budget. James Cameron has created the Star Wars (5/5) of our time. The film has perfect timing within the wrap up of the decade, giving us the realization that this was one of the best decades for films in awhile. Where Avatar lacks unfortunately is the story, however I don't think it was Camerons goal to give you something new story-wise. But introduce us to this new technology in cinema. So story-wise theres nothing new but a sci-fi action film, but it is truly brought to life.
4.5/5 FANTASTIC REVIEW
My Movie Review: Invictus
By Wade Durham
Clint Eastwood is getting pretty old, but that obviously does not stop him from doing what he lives and that is making movies. Invictus is a very interesting take on the story behind the presidency of Mandella and how he inspired South America to go for gold in the World Cup at Rugby. The second inspirational sports movie of my day (Blindside was the other). However unlike The Blindside there was something different about Invictus, there was a little more truth to it, and not to mention top notch editing. Eastwood has done nearly everything in film and I am guessing he found a story that aroused his interest and made it into a pretty good biopic. Now this next thing I am going to right is going to be hard because its hard to say anything negative about a Clint Eastwood movie. Invictus was entirely predictable, but it wasn't the kind of film for twists in turns. In areas they focused to hard on important matters, and the final rugby match drags the movie out to one of the longest two hours i've had in awhile. Another public interest film, kind of like The Informant! (2.5/5) where I disagreed with most critics basically because its not entertainment to me, its telling a very inspirational and damn good story, but it felt like a boring history lessons at points. The best part about the film is incredible oscar-worthy performances by Freeman and Damon, where they had different accents and changed most of their apperance for. Invictus may not be a classic, but Eastwood made it for a reason, simply the fact that the story had to be told.
3/5 Good Review.
My Movie Review: The Blind Side
By Wade Durham
Sandra Bullock stars in this great biopic about overcoming poverty. The Blind Side is based on a true story, and theres a lot of truth to it. Many times sports films have come out identical to this with inspiration and a lot of feeling to do it, so in my experience in seeing the film I felt like I was seeing something that i've already watched. The story dragged for a bit but whenever the drama kicked it...it kicked hard. Bullock plays her character down to every detail in a very passionate performance, which makes since with all the recent Oscar buzz she's been getting. The cast works together well and while the films never really stops and makes you say wow it is still very inspirational and very well done. The Blind Side is no over achiever, theres nothing new to be seen here, nothing original. Completely predictable storyline, however it seems like the basic inspirational sports drama story still works well. This is based on a true story, and while the true story is at sometimes quite interesting it can drag and get dull at times. A nice musical score is added to the film to spice it up, but it doesn't quite give it what it needs, in the end The Blind Side was a good movie experience, would I suggest seeing it? Only if you had spare time on your hands.
3/5 Good Review.
My Movie Review: Brothers
By Wade Durham
Deep, and often tear-jerking. Jim Sheridans Brothers is good drama porn. Basically what we have here is Tobey Maguires characters Sam is married to Natalie Portmans characters, and Tobeys brother is Jake Gyllenhaal. Sam supposebly dies over in Iraq when a mild affair happens with Jake and Natalie, then Sam comes home fine. The movie is completely anti-war in showing its impact on peoples minds. The real thing to look for here is the amazing talent of Tobey Maguire, the guy can really act he's most renown for SpiderMan but he fit into this role well and carried the movie himself. Without Tobey the movie probably would'be bombed, not saying the other actors did bad, but Tobey stood out the most. The story was pretty good it seemed Sheridan wasn't sure what final emotion he wanted his audience to get out of it. What I got from it was war changes people and it sucks. There are a couple moments in Brothers where i'm on the edge of my seat. Its not an oscar winning film. (Besides Tobeys performance). Its more of a self realization film because this shit is really going on
3.5/5 GREAT REVIEW
